I know restoration is difficult to level, and I don't play in the way where I spam spells on one enemy over and over. If I wanted to exploit or cheat, I would just use the console. Anyways, I like restoration so far cause I don't need potions. But how good is respite? Does it heal the stamina as fast as the health?

Yes, and seeing as how you only need one stamina to perform a power attack you'll find yourself wanting to utilize Restoration more often than not during combat. If I'm not mistaken, Respite recovers the same amount of stamina as you would health.

Save, choose the perk, if you don't like, reload.

Respite is made for Warriors who use Restoration.

It does heal the same amount. Thank the Gods for Close Wounds.

It's a pain to level though.

I use respite on my fighter type characters and it is very good in my opinion. I would probably not pick it for my wizard characters, not that it is bad or uselss on them but there are better perks for them than respite.

Yes, especially vampires and melee fighters.

I even use it on my Mage, just so I can sprint more.

Most of My characters pay for Restoration Training, and spend the Perks in the tree on-

Novice Restoration

Recovery (2)

Necromage

Repite

Regeneration

I always pick Respite on Warriors and Hybrids to regenerate Stamina and Health between Battles. With Dawngaurd, most of My characters use Necromage to boost damage to Undead. My Mages always get the Recovery and Necromage Perks as soon as possible.

The one Perk I do not use often from the Restoration Tree is avoid Death, I will pick it on a Warrior with a large Health Pool, but a Mage with 100 Health dies before they can benefit from the Perk